printer toner - a mountain out of a mole hill?

[Guest guest]

Hello,

I work in research in health care so when I read the

report online about printers I was intrigued.

In fact, I found the original article.

http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/sample.cgi/esthag/asap/html/es063049z.html

What is important for us to realize, before we go nuts

and throw out all our printers is that this is one (1)

study with less than 75 printers. Would you take a

drug studied on less than 75 people? No. You would say

there is not enough evidence. The same thing applies

in this situation.

If you read it, you will see:

" Overall, 60% of the investigated printers were

non-emitters and of the 40% that were emitters, 27%

were classed as high submicrometer particle emitters.

It can also be seen that the same model of a printer

(in this case the HP LaserJet 5) can act as either a

non-emitter or a high emitter, and further

investigation should be conducted for this phenomena. "

Nothing conclusive can be drawn from this article.

There was no direct link to health outcomes AT ALL

except the suggestion that some airborne particles

indoors can cause health issues.

I know we all want an explanation for our lung disease

but sometimes there is no explanation or, if there is

one, it is a complex interplay of genetic makeup,

early exposures and current lifestyle.

My point in making this post is that we may be letting

the media drive us in our actions (as they are the

ones who found the study and deemed it was pertinent

to publish widely). The mass media does not publish

studies where THEY deem nothing interesting was found

(eg if there was no significant results).

With that being said, occupational disease does exist.

However, in this case, more studies are needed before

concrete conclusions can be drawn. Let's wait for the

replications before we pull a stunt like in the movie

" Office Space "

Check it out!

http://www.imdb.com/gallery/ss/0151804/Ss/0151804/office1.jpg.html?path=gallery & \

path_key=0151804

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